News

Magic Day

Published 17 May 13

We've had some higher grass growth rates in the past week or so
from some of the farmers who are taking part in our Forage for
Knowledge grass analysis, says Piers Badnell, DairyCo Extension
Officer.

"Soil temperature and moisture levels seem to have come together
to provide better long awaited growing conditions. And what this
means is, that in some areas, Magic Day is here or soon to be here,
even if it is a month later then normal!

"Magic Day is the day that grass supply matches grass demand,"
explains Piers Badnell. "It means you have to start managing your
grass in a new way. It's the start of a new regime.

"Grass growth rates are finally increasing so you have to be on
top of your management in order to make sure the grass does not get
away from you, and quality suffers. Grazing surpluses should be
conserved. If the next field is getting away from you skip it and
move to the correct entry of 2700 - 2800 kg DM / Ha. It is very
important to maintain grass at the correct entry covers, but in a
year where silage is going to be lower in yield than usual the
ability to conserve what you can't utilise now but are able to
utilise as silage later, is a double bonus.

"Grass that gets beyond 2800 and certainly 3000 kg DM / Ha is
growing slower, thus reducing your overall yield, and it is
reducing in quality. It is also harder for the cow to graze and
utilise and so it gets wasted.

"It's after magic day that it's all important you manage the
grass using the grass wedge. The wedge allows you to spot
potential surpluses or shortages in forage supply in the near
future. Using the wedge gives you ten days to two weeks'
notice of what is happening in terms of growth speeding up or
slowing down. It gives you time to put measures in place to rectify
the situation, before things get away from you in terms of having
too much grass in front of cows, and thus increasing waste. Or
conversely with grass growth slowing and potentially cows chasing
grass and getting ahead of supply, with the end result of no grass
and the resultant cost implications of feeding cows from the pit or
lorry.

"On a recent farm visit with a grassland group, it looked like
the host farmer might well be heading towards having a grass
surplus and we talked about what steps he was going to take to help
get grazing back on track," says Piers Badnell.

"The farmer is going to increase the grass allocation to his low
yielding cows to 15kg DM and possibly look at increasing the grass
in the high yielders diets after a conversation with another member
who has been able to make use of the high dry matters in grazing to
increase dry matter intake to 9kg DM per cow. The conclusion of the
group was to measure the grass weekly and reassess the situation to
try and make sure they are one step ahead of it.

"Even with Magic Day approaching it is important to remembe
there might not always be plenty of grass. Especially in areas
where night time temperatures are below where we would normally
expect with the resultant suppression of grass growth.

"Grass growth varies through the season, and with the ability to
measure and budget with a plate meter and the grazing wedge,
managing the rapid increases in growth and then the slowing up
enables good profitable decisions to be made."